15 Must Have Plugins for Your Minecraft Server (Spigot, Bukkit, Paper)

By Patrick Fassler •  Updated: 11/21/18 •  12 min read

Finding plugins for your Bukkit, Spigot & Paper servers can be a detrimental part in the success of any Minecraft server. From making sure players have a lag-free experience to keeping the community guidelines and rules in check, it's essential to have a solid list of the best plugins for Bukkit, Spigot, & Paper servers. Thus we decided to create a top 15 list of the best plugins that you must have on your Spigot server. From grief protection to allowing you to protect your spawn, set warps, and do much more. Thus, let's go ahead and jump on into our list of the top 15 best Minecraft plugins!

15 Best Plugins for Minecraft Server

1) EssentialsX

One of the most versatile and useful plugins to add to a server is EssentialsX. This plugin for Bukkit & Spigot servers is technically a performance enhancement for Essentials with some added tools to improve the experience of a Minecraft Multiplayer server. EssentialsX allows you to customs aspects of the chat, spawn, prefixes/suffixes, and much more.

EssentialsX has quite a few advantages over using the standard Essentials plugin on your server. Some of the added benefits of EssentialsX include:

  • Creating Kits for Players
  • Controlled Private Messaging
  • /Seen Command
  • Nickname Color Permissions
  • AFK Messages
  • /AFK Command
  • /Pay Command Confirmation
  • Mail Chat Formatting
  • Command Cooldowns
  • & MUCH More

EssentialsX also allows commands like /Home and /Spawn. If your Minecraft Server utilizes the Vault plugin, you can also set up sign shops, sell items, and have an entire economy for your players.

Download EssentialsX & View More Here: https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/essentialsx.9089/

2) WorldEdit

World Edit is a must-have for fast building on a Minecraft server. It allows you to build massive structures, paint the ground with the brush feature, and make incredible server builds with just a few clicks and a few commands. On top of that, World Edit has the ability to give players access and let them only use the items in their inventory.

With 1.16+ World Edit has also become much more efficient and has no problems building huge buildings or importing massive schematics. This is because it was recodded and optimized as much as possible for 1.16+ dropping all of the old inefficient code for much better lag-free solutions.

Download WorldEdit & View More: https://dev.bukkit.org/projects/worldedit

3) World Guard

If you're running a public server, you will run into issues with players griefing spawn, other player's builds, and more. World Guard helps put an end to griefing on servers, which makes it one of the best plugins for Bukkit & Spigot servers around. This plugin also allows you to protect certain regions while still allowing players to have access to specific items in those regions such as chests.

In a spawn, for example, you can allow players to be able to open chests, crates, anvils, etc. while not allowing them to place or remove blocks.

Additionally, if you want players to be able to battle it out in PVP, you can easily set up a region where PVP is enabled, disable fly, and more. To do this, all you need to do is allow the PVP flags in World Guard.

Download World Guard & View More: http://www.enginehub.org/worldguard

4) ShopGUI Plus

Every good Minecraft server has some sort of shop where players can buy and sell items with the server's economy. While you can set up a basic sign shop with EssentialsX easily, players have come to expect a GUI for the server shop. That's where ShopGUI comes into play. ShopGUI Plus allows you to create a shop that players can access no matter where they are located in the server.

ShopGUI Plus is an incredible premium plugin that allows you to give your players easy, graphical shop access. This plugin is also extremely easy to configure. Any items that are in Minecraft can be bought and sold in the GUI through this plugin, which gives your server a more modern aspect and is more interactive for players.

Download ShopGUI Plus & View More: https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/shopgui-1-7-1-13.6515/

5) DeluxeMenus

Back when Minecraft first appeared, everything on a server was done with a command. However, as time has went on, players on Minecraft servers have started using commands less and less instead using GUIs. How are these GUIs created? Well, a lot of them are created using DeluxeMenus.

As the name implies, DeluxeMenus allows you to create menus or GUIs in Minecraft. These menus can be completely custom and using placeholders, they can hook into other plugins and display data such as stats, player names, etc. You can also hook Deluxe Menus into BungeeCord if you are running a network server to display player counts, allow server switching, and more.

Truthfully, if you want to customize your Minecraft server and make it truly unique, look no further than the menus that you can crate with Deluxe Menus.

Download Deluxe Menus & View More: https://TheBreakdown.xyz/DeluxeMenus

6) Holographic Displays

When a new player comes and joins your server, it can sometimes be confusing from there perspective to know what to do next. Obviously, you can use books or signs, but why not make it fun and easier to read? Maybe you need to put emphasis on a specific rule or command into spawn. Holographic Displays work perfectly in these situations!

We Holographic Displays for nearly everything now. From crate key instructions to basic commands for getting started, we have Holographic Displays set up all throughout our server network to help players know what to do.

This plugin allows you to put text anywhere in your world with the text and format you want. It's completely Bukkit color code compatible, and it's on nearly every public server right now. Holographic Displays let you get your players' attention without spamming the chat with broadcasting all the time.

Download Holographic Displays & View More: https://dev.bukkit.org/projects/holographic-displays

7) Jobs Reborn

When it comes to keeping economies balanced in Minecraft, it can be a big task. Making sure that what players can sell things to the server for isn't too much, making sure there isn't any glitches in the eco allowing for boosting, it really is a big task.

Because of this, more and more servers are removing the ability to earn money from selling things to a /shop. Instead, they are making players earn money through action in game. This is where Jobs Reborn comes in.

Jobs Reborn is a plugin that adds in a ton of different jobs from woodcutting to excavating to hunting to farming. These jobs all let you earn money in game and letting your players purchase things without selling things to the server store. On top of all this, Jobs Reborn adds in leaderboards and other features that will keep players playing and leveling up their Jobs.

Download Jobs Reborn & View More Here: https://TheBreakdown.xyz/JobsReborn

8) MCMMO

Remember the worry-free days of leveling up your Woodcutting skills on Runescape? Well, MCMMO brings a new aspect to Minecraft by adding similar skills. This alone makes it one of the BEST plugins for Bukkit & Spigot servers! Players can level up their skills in everything from woodcutting to fishing to mining and so much more! No matter what it is, there is probably an MCMMO skill for it – including repairing tools!

As you level up, these skills will give you additional perks that will help with that skill. For example, the MCMMO skill Tree Feller allows you to chop down an entire tree with just one hit! The higher your level gets, the higher chance you have at obtaining new/more items from a block!

This also adds a new aspect to your Minecraft server to help get your players addicted to your game and play more! Overall, MCMMO is a fantastic plugin to add to any Bukkit/Spigot server!

Download MCMMO & View More Here: https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/official-mcmmo-original-author-returns.64348/

9) GriefPrevention

Stop the griefing with just one plugin! GriefPrevention is targeted at survival-based servers and allows players to claim areas using a golden shovel. After an area is claimed, other players will not be able to place, remove, or use blocks unless trusted by the claim owner!

GriefPrevention takes so much stress out of running a Minecraft server by cutting down on the amount of destroyed player builds and stolen items! It is by far the best anti-griefing plugin available today, and it is a must-have on every Survival server!

Download GriefPrevention & View More Here: https://dev.bukkit.org/projects/grief-prevention

10) LagAssist

LagAssist is the next generation of lag reduction for your Minecraft server. It can do everything from improve hoppers with its chunk hopper setup to limit entities to stack mobs efficiently to even optimizing redstone and spawners. If your server is lagging, this is a great asset to it.

We personally use LagAssist on our network server, and it helps a ton when it comes to chunk overloading, entity overloading, hopper optimization, redstone limiting, and even TPS notifications. We do recommend pairing this with Spark to get the most data you possibly can from TPS on your server.

Truthfully, the best thing about LagAssist is that everything we have mentioned is completely customizable and can be very, very easily turned off. If you don't want a feature, just turn it off. If you thing a feature it too sensitive tweak its settings to make it less sensitive. You really do have complete control over what LagAssist does.

Download LagAssist & View More: https://TheBreakdown.xyz/LagAssist

11) MyCommand

Have you ever wanted to add custom commands to your Minecraft server? If so, this is the plugin for you. MyCommand will allow you to add all kinds of different custom commands to your server. From alias commands that just run other commands from your server to custom commands that do multiple things at one time.

There are actually so many different things that can be done with MyCommand that we couldn't possibly list them all here. Thus, go check it out your self, and start adding your very own commands to your Minecraft server!

Download MyCommand & View More: https://TheBreakdown.xyz/MyCommand

12) DiscordSRV

DiscordSRV is plugin that allows you to create Discord channels that will show your Minecraft chat and server console on Discord. This is great for keeping logs, but it can also help you moderate your server as you can see in-game chat without being in Minecraft.

You can also chat in-game with players using Discord, and execute commands via the Minecraft server console in-game which can be helpful for banning players, doing random key drops, etc. instead of having to go in-game or to your server host to run these commands. There are also other features such as being able to link players Discord accounts with their Minecraft accounts.

DiscordSRV is one of those plugins I won't run a server without.

Download DiscordSRV & View More: https://TheBreakdown.xyz/DiscordSRV

13) Citizens

Citizens is a plugin that adds in NPCs to Minecraft. From player NPCs to mob NPCs, there are tons of different NPCs that you can add to your server. What can these NPCs do? Well, there are almost unlimited possibilities. From server switching NPCs to quest NPCs to everything in between, Citizens hooks into hundreds of other plugins which in turn allow you to do tons of different things on your Minecraft server.

On BreakdownCraft, our network server, we use Citizens for everything from server NPCs to menu NPCs to book/tutorial NPCs. Truthfully, there are hundreds of different ways to use Citizens to make your Minecraft server something cool and truly unique.

Download Citizens & View More: https://TheBreakdown.xyz/Citizens

14) Player Warps

If you want players to set warps on your server without taking over the entire /setwarp system that EssentialsX adds, Player Warps is the prefect system. It adds in a system where players can set their own warps, categorize them, and if you want them to, even charge players to use them.

All of these warps are then stored in a /pwarp GUI where players can easily see them all in one place. You can also sort by categories, see how many times each warp has been visited and more. You can also easily give players warps via ranks, store upgrades, and more. Player Warps really is one of the best warp mods out there!

Download Player Warps & View More: https://TheBreakdown.xyz/PlayerWarps

15) CoreProtect

CoreProtect is by far the best grief reversal tool for Minecraft because it allows admins to completely undo any grief that was done. CoreProtect logs all the blocks broken and placed on your server, and then, with a few commands, you can undo those blocks.

Whether it is for specific users, a specific area, a certain amount of time, or all of the above, CoreProtect is the perfect plugin for undoing grief and making sure your players can play in confidence. Even if they are griefed, you can take care of it.

Download CoreProtect & View More: https://TheBreakdown.xyz/CoreProtect

Let us know! What are your favorite plugins that are essential for running a successful Minecraft server? We'd love to hear your feedback below!

Patrick Fassler

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